


Orange Juice

by Kippysaurus



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Character Study, Crowley was a musician, conspiracy theorist Aziraphale, self indulgent, you can’t change my mind
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-22
Updated: 2019-11-22
Packaged: 2021-02-26 16:41:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,936
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21521458
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kippysaurus/pseuds/Kippysaurus
Summary: Crowley’s travels with musical instruments over the years.Badly done character study, with a lot of footnotes.
Relationships: Aziraphale & Crowley (Good Omens), Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 3
Kudos: 6





	Orange Juice

Crowley had always had a passion for spreading evil via inconvenience. He didn’t have to do anything he morally disagreed with, and multiple people got a tarnish on their good, pleasant souls. Win-win. Of course, Crowley still felt some regret when doing Evil Deeds and such, but those were emotions that were still awfully raw and he was not ready to face them just yet. So for now he would spread the evil he could and try not to get caught skiving*.

_*He was rather proud of skiving. It is still a practise today, and there have been quite a few commendations for it. Most notably, Brexit occurring via the Prime Minister slacking off with the remain campaign._

(Aaaanyways…)So, when he first heard about people creating ‘music’ via instruments, he thought, why not? He found the people involved, a small group in Hohle Fels*, and miracled something resembling what they had**. Once he had it, he practised until he could play, and well at that. 

_*http://www.ancient-wisdom.com/germanyhohlefels.htm_

_**in modern times, the instrument in question would be called a flute._

As a demon, doing a good thing is frowned upon, so he took to the streets of Babylon, Mesopotamia and started playing*, under the pretence that it was creating widespread annoyance throughout the city. It did do that, and rather successfully too, to the point received a commendation for it from Hell**.

_*He accidentally created the concept of busking. God wasn’t sure if They were pleased or not. (They were sure, and it was in favour of pleased***.)_

_**Beelzebub was rather fond of the instrument, but would never say so, as it wasn’t  
Bad/Evil/Wrong._

_***This was because, with Their ineffable sight, They foresaw how busking would stop an invasion of the Pangolians into Tibet in 1264. If Crowley hadn’t stepped in, there would be no such thing as ‘India’ today. There would instead be Pangolia. God rather liked India. The hindus there seemed to get ineffability as a concept right._

In reality though, the main reason he did was for the immense satisfaction that no other immortal being could do what he did*, and that came with the fact that he, a demon, someone who by his very nature was supposed to do bad in the world, could make random bypassers smile and laugh**. He could leave a mark of good in the world. That thought made him unnecessarily happy about himself.

_*While angels and demons both made music of some description, neither one had the same hauntingly beautiful quality to it that human music created and inspired._

_**He never was sure whether that old lady selling apples was laughing with joy at his playing, or at the sight some people made when stopping to applaud, or in one notable case, dancing to, his music._

After a few years(? Decades? He didn’t know, there wasn’t really any way of counting those yet), he got bored of Babylon*, and moved on in the world- quite literally. He ended up in India, and accidentally made snakes sacred when he shapeshifted into one in the middle of a marketplace**. After that… embarrassing debacle, he decided to head back over to the newly-named Mediterranean Sea, where he found the country of Greece, and Athens in particular***.

_*Although he did rather like the hanging gardens, very stylistic._

_**These snakes, called naga, are known as deities or as a class of entity or being, taking the form of a very large snake, and appear in multiple myths and legends.  
Nagas can also appear as half-human, half-snake._

_***As Athens was the first place with a democracy, it was also the first place where Crowley could play around with politicians. He found it rather amusing, really._

He found there that someone had an idea very similar to his current instrument, but facing downwards instead of sideways*, and called it an ‘aulos’. Because of his previous expertise, he found himself near-mastering it as well- no miracles involved, just pure demon-power. Now with two instruments at his disposal, his acts of ‘evil’ kept stacking up**. 

_*Essentially a recorder. More info to be found here: https://www.ancient.eu/Aulos/_

_**Beelzebub did not like this new one as much. Crowley found he didn’t much, either._

It wasn’t until some bright spark invented the lyre that Crowley gained a second way of using his musically talented fingers. This time, instead of covering holes over with them to create different pitches, he had to pluck at strings, tightened to different degrees and sometimes pushed down for the same effect*. It was an experience he very much would’ve liked to avoid, but he was pleased with the end result**. So, it seemed, were the people on the streets.

_*(AN - please enjoy this amazing version of what a guitar is and how to play it! Sincerely, not a guitarist)_

_**As was Beelzebub, and the small following of demons that had to hand out his commendations and so had formed a fanbase***._

_***The first rule of Crowley’s fanbase? Don’t talk about Crowley’s fanbase._

Sure, there were still multiple people who disliked Crowley’s work, but he had gained enough of a reputation to have become a bit of a local legend*. Of course, this inadvertently caused the souls that were being given just a light tarnish a much deeper coating of Badness, because Crowley chose street corners to perform on, and crowds in corners are never very well appreciated, even by the crowd**. Nonetheless, he was happy performing songs (his own ones, he might add, as there were no composers way back then) and seeing children and adults enjoying them.

_*The legend goes like this - if ever you hear ethereal music playing in the distance, whether it be lyre, aulos or otherwise, run towards the source. A man with flaming red hair and serpentine eyes will be there, and if you place a coin in his pot, you will be granted good health for a year, courtesy of the god Apollo, god of music and healing***._

_**If you’ve ever been in a tour group, you should understand._

_***Of course this was circulated by Crowley, he couldn’t help a bit of deception here and there, and besides, he did need the money****. He did, however, stop the people involved from catching colds because colds are too evil even for demons*****._

_****This part God did not say was good. God thoroughly disapproved, in fact._

_*****They were alright with this one._

Of course, his good streak fell when Athens did, to the Roman empire. He had of course left to tempt Jesus (and see him die, which was a shame. He really liked the kid.). He cut his hair in the latest Roman fashion, nipped over to China to get a pair of tinted lenses he’d heard about and set out to do the same as he had before.

His plans fell to pieces when he met the angel Aziraphale in a bar in Rome, and was ‘tempted’ to some oysters. He hadn’t really wanted to go, but Aziraphale was the closest thing to a friend he had, so tagged along. The angel was correct though, Petronius’ restaurant did do amazing things.

“Did you hear about this one performer in Athens? You were there recently, if memory serves,” Aziraphale was saying over a glass of wine, a deep red affair which clashed horrifically with his colour scheme*. “They’re supposed to be very good with a lyre, aulos and this other thing, like an aulos turned sideways. Some are claiming them to be the god Apollo in human form, even.”

_*Aziraphale didn’t care about this fact, but Crowley had spent so much time without the angel in his life** that he found himself picking out random things about his Adversary._

_**As was supposed to be. It was very hard to fool two sets of eldritch authorities if you spent all your time with an agent of the other, after all._

Crowley snorted at that, and yet felt very pleased that the people of Athens had felt so highly about him and his performances. Speaking of, he should really learn a new instrument soon*. “I did hear about them, angel, but never got to see in person. Too busy causing havoc with the thing they called ‘democracy’.” Sadly, not much came of it, the Greeks were rather slow at actually doing anything with the decision they had made, but he had the sense it would become much more amusing in the future.

_*He had heard tell of an instrument called ‘pan pipes’, and was keen to try them out._

Aziraphale looked almost upset. “Oh. Well, that’s unfortunate. I was hoping you would be able to confirm the rumours, but it seems not. More wine*?” Crowley desperately wished he could boast about his amazing ability, but if he did there was a chance Aziraphale would try and find him more often, and they could be discovered. He wouldn’t risk that. Never. So he took the change of subject without a word.

_*The two beings had drunk enough to render the average mortal either blackout drunk, or dead. However, as has been established, they are not the average mortal, or immortal for that matter._

“Of course, angel. Cheers to… oysters and ducks!”

“Ducks?”

“Ducks. Brilliant creatures, ducks. Did you know there’s a real life fear of being watched by a duck? Plus, water slides off them! Plus plus, I got the humans into the trend of feeding them bread, which is bad for them, which is sinning, even if the humans don’t recognise it, making the experts really pissed off, creating more sinning! Ducks!” He felt the aura around Aziraphale emit a clear sense of confusion*, and laughed. “Ok then, just to oysters. How about it?”

_*Crowley was unique in that he could sense just a bit more than who was around in an angelic/ demonic aura. This had come from the bite of the apple in Eden. He didn’t regret it, not when it came to situations like this._

“Alright then. To oysters.” Outside the restaurant, a nightingale chirped confusedly. It was sure it had been somewhere else before, perhaps with some coconuts?*

_*It had, in fact, been trying to annoy some african swallows earlier that morning._

After a pleasant enough evening, he took to the streets. Most of the people around were drunkards* and had lost most of their money, but the tune he played did have a subtle hangover cure tucked inside, so they ended up more sober the longer they stayed around, and when Crowley left started following. By the end of the night, he had to use a minor miracle to get into his flat unnoticed. Once there, he laughed and congratulated himself on accidentally creating the next urban legend. Now it was time to find some panpipes.

_*Himself included._

XxX

Aziraphale couldn’t help but think that Crowley was lying about seeing the mystery performer, so went to check Athens out. If there was no sign, the man had moved on.

While in Athens, he met many people who had claimed to have seen the scarlet-haired man, who- to his surprise- seemed to match the description of Crowley as he had been after his jaunt to India. Unfortunately they also mentioned it had been about a year since he had last been seen, leaving the public thinking the gods had forsaken them.

‘Curiouser and curiouser,’ he thought, accidentally penning a phrase from not far in the future*. It was time to start investigating properly.

_*Alice in Wonderland, July 1862. Not far for an angel, very far for everyone else._

**Author's Note:**

> Will be continued, eventually!
> 
> The title will be explained in time.  
> This is me just having fun with the idea that Crowley was the world’s first busker, it wasn’t supposed to get this long I swear!


End file.
